providing village households or metropolitan areas with 

 adequate, safe water. Although numerous small-scale 

 water projects have been undertaken, many are no longer 

 operative because equipment, motors, and chemicals 

 cannot be maintained or adequately trained operators 

 are not available; systems have been poorly managed. 

 Some problems arise because developed country 

 engineers, financial institutions, and advisers tend to 

 select technology that is too sophisticated for the 

 capital, organization, and management capabilities of 

 developing countries. Systems need to be designed that 

 are appropriate for site-specific conditions. 



A further impediment to solving water problems is 

 lack of adequate funding. In the United States, for 

 example, water is paid for by the consumer; in most 

 developing countries, it is a part of national budgets, 

 and this tends to limit the support received. 



Rationale for Selecting this Topic 



A major resolution of the U.N. Water Conference of 

 1977 states that the provision of safe, adequate water 

 supplies is a number one priority in many developing 

 countries (United Nations 1977a). U.S. support for 

 this priority is also consistent with the congressional 

 mandate to address the problems of the rural poor, the 

 Percy Amendment on the impact of AID programs on the 

 status of women, and the resolution of the U.N. 

 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The 

 greatest environmental threat to human well-being in 

 developing countries may well be the threat of 

 infection, which stems largely from contaminated water 

 and poor waste disposal. 



More effective use of national and local planning 

 and managerial capabilities, and of technology based on 

 renewable energy sources, offers promise in this area. 

 A broader understanding now exists of the problems of 

 allocation, proprietary rights, and priorities for 

 access to water; management of basic resources (e.g., 

 river basin agreements) ; and provision for maintenance 

 and operating funds. The fundamental relationships 

 among water and health, nutrition, and in a larger 

 sense economic development, are well established, 

 though not precisely quantified. 



The selection of appropriate water system 

 technology by developing countries — systems that can be 

 maintained and operated in-country — would permit scarce 

 capital to go further and more water systems to be 

 constructed and successfully operated. The United 

 States has experience using a wide range of water and 

 waste water treatment technologies, as well as planning 

 and managerial capabilities that can be applied to the 



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